Congratulations Amee Cooper, the winner of our 2018 Senior Executive of the Year award. We will be honoring Amee (and our other winners) at our annual Make Your Mark Awards on Thursday, Nov 15 at the Santa Clara Marriott. RSVP to celebrate with us!

Amee Cooper is the Senior Director, R&D Operations at VMware, Inc. She joined VMware in 2006 as the Manager of Partner Infrastructure and rose through the ranks to her current roles as the Chief of Staff of R&D Operations and Central Services and as the co-Chief of Staff to the two COOs of R&D Product and Cloud Services within VMware. She also leads organizations delivering R&D Technical Education and cross-R&D programs.

Amee started her career as an Accountant for Samson Companies before deciding her passion for people and computers came before her love of numbers. She transitioned to work on business systems and applications for the global companies Lexmark and InterGen. At VMware, Amee envisioned and created the Change Management practice, delivering best practice activities on global corporate initiatives. She now utilizes her Project Management and Change Management skills to lead and deliver impactful programs for R&D within VMware.

For the inaugural year of the Women@VMware Power of Difference Community, Amee served as the co-Lead for the global employee resource group. She was also a contributor to the VMware Foundation’s two papers on Transforming Technology Pro Bono. Amee earned dual bachelor’s degrees in Accounting and Business Computer Information Systems from John Brown University.

Smartest Career Move

My latest career move was the smartest move to date as I moved from leading a Project Management and Change Management organization to being a central engineering operations leader / Chief of Staff. It was such a thrill to take on something new and feel confident I could continue to deliver value to VMware, even while learning tons more for a company I thought I knew well. One lesson I learned during this process was to make a few lists. One of those lists was a list of my strengths / skills so that when I came up against a seemingly insurmountable deliverable, I was able to look at my list of strengths / skills and find the courage to press forward and conquer. It helped increase my confidence in a time of uncertainty and new challenges."

Most Valuable Lesson Learned?

"I think Dory in Finding Nemo had it right – just keep swimming! It isn’t always the fastest or strongest who finishes the race. Many times it is the one who has the most endurance to keep on learning, encouraging others along the way, and finding purpose in action. When I was a new manager, I had a bunch of missteps in my first few months – as many new managers do! But one thing my mentor encouraged me to do was to keep trying – because someday I was going to be a great people manager. How? By not giving up. By taking each scenario and reviewing my response, then continuing to improve and refine so that the next time faced with the same scenario, I would be a better equipped to respond. It was a valuable lesson I still continue to practice to this day."

Personal Mantra

"Alis Volat Propriis – which translates to 'She flies with her own wings'."